Understand the telecommunications services and effectively manage the costs of those services. We explains in nontechnical language the most common telecom technologies and services in today’s marketplace. These services fall into four categories: local, long distance, data, and wireless services. Each service offering has its own unique type of bill.

Telecom : Missing discounts

Missing discountsThe most common error on long-distance bills is a missing discount. The discount amount may be incorrect or missing altogether. Incorrect discounts often happen because an overzealous sales representative offered higher discounts than he was allowed to offer. When the order reached the carrier’s data entry staff, they lowered the discounts to the correct amount. If this happens, a customer should present the initial proposal to the sales representative and sales manager and demand that the billing be corrected. Missing discounts on subaccountsCompanies with multilocation billing often experience billing errors, especially with Sprint. An East Coast real estate company had offices in three cities. The company switched to Sprint and had all three locations bill on the same master account. Sprint set up the account and gave each location the 35% discount the customer negotiated. The 35% discount is based on standard tariff discounts and an additional 10% custom discount. The customer examined the bills regularly and did not detect any errors.

Later, the firm opened two more locations and had Sprint add them to the account. When Sprint set up the two new subaccounts, it failed to implement the custom discounts, so those locations ended up paying higher rates. I have seen this error on at least a dozen Sprint accounts. After being notified, Sprint usually corrects the problem quickly and issues a refund.